Politics

On this week’s Your Call media roundtable, we’ll discuss the recent Taliban and ISIS suicide bombings in Afghanistan, which killed at least 138 people. According to reports, as the Taliban gains more territory, the Pentagon has tried to censor information about how much of the country is controlled by insurgent groups.

In his new book, It’s Even Worse Than you Think: What the Trump Administration is Doing to America, investigative journalist David Cay Johnston says political termites have infested our government. On this edition of Your Call, we discuss how the Trump administration is working to undermine government.

On this week’s media roundtable, we’ll discuss coverage of Turkey’s military assault on the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in Syria. The attack has displaced more than 5,000 people and more than 25 have been killed.

Activists resisting the Trump administration have been organizing protests, mobilizing voters, and running for office. They have opposed restrictions on immigration, advocated for women’s rights, and spoken out against racial injustice. More than 250 Women’s March anniversary actions are planned for January 20. We’ll ask local organizers: Where has the movement succeeded, and what’s to come in 2018?

Eight candidates qualified Tuesday to run in San Francisco's mayoral race and the ballot could become even more crowded in a contest expected to pit the city's progressive values against its thirst for economic development following years of spectacular but divisive growth driven by the technology sector.

The Friday December 22 broadcast of Your Call: the Friday Media Roundtable

On this week’s media roundtable, we’ll discuss press freedom in the United States and across the world, and the shifting media landscape in the Trump era. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, in 2017, the number of journalists jailed around the world reached a record high of 262.

This week, in a dramatic turnaround, voters in Alabama chose former prosecutor Doug Jones to be their next Senator. He become the first Democrat elected to the Senate in Alabama in 25 years. On this week's media roundtable, we’ll discuss coverage.

On Wednesday, Donald Trump formally recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. On the next Your Call’s media roundtable, we’ll discuss media coverage of Trump's statement, what life is like for Palestinians living in Jerusalem, and the expansion of Israeli settlements. We'll also look at the worsening humanitarian crisis in Yemen.

Two months after hurricane Maria, many people in Puerto Rico are still living without electricity and clean drinking water. On this week’s media roundtable, we’ll discuss coverage of the humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico.

Last weekend, Mohamad Bin Salman, the Saudi Crown Prince and the architect of the devastating war in Yemen, ordered the arrests of some of the country’s top political and business elites. On this week’s media roundtable, we’ll discuss coverage of the ongoing crackdowns in Saudi Arabia.

It's been almost a year since Donald Trump was elected president, and on issues from immigration to climate change, California's been putting up a fight. Host Joseph Pace and guests look at how our state has been influencing national law and policy, the limits of resistance, and the future of California's relationship with Washington.

This week, former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and his business associate Rick Gates were indicted on a long list of crimes, including money laundering. Earlier this month, Donald Trump’s foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI. On this week’s media roundtable, we’ll discuss coverage of the investigation into Russian meddling in the election.

Over the past 50 years, Americans have become more and more sick, unhappy, and broken. In his new book, The Hacking of the American Mind: The Science Behind the Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Brains, Dr. Robert Lusting argues that corporations are maximizing profits by exploiting our brain physiology and chemistry to conflate pleasure with happiness.

On this week’s media roundtable, we’ll talk about the fall of Kirkuk with the Guardian’s Martin Chulov. Three weeks after the Kurdish referendum for independence, the Iraqi military and Iranian backed Shiite militias took over the Kurdish held city of Kirkuk. What’s next?

On this week’s media roundtable, we’ll discuss Germany’s election results. For the first time in Germany's postwar history, a far-right party managed to enter Parliament. The anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party won 12.6% of the vote.

The Golden State Warriors made a political statement over the weekend, when superstar Steph Curry said he wouldn’t join a celebration at the White House if the team received the traditional championship invitation.

In her new book Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, historian Nancy MacLean tells the story of the Nobel Prize-winning political economist James McGill Buchanan who played a key role in the rise of the radical right.

June marked the 50th anniversary of the occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. After visiting the occupied territories, renowned novelists and essayists Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman marked the anniversary by inviting international writers to bear witness to the human cost of the occupation and share their experiences.

Why do young people join ISIS and Al-Qaida? In her new book I Was Told to Come Alone: My Journey Behind the Lines of Jihad, Washington Post national security correspondent Souad Mekhennet provides on-the-ground reporting on the rise of Al-Qaida, ISIS, and their victims.